"The rainy season has begun in several regions in NTT and are experiencing short period of days without rain, but several others yet continue to reel from extreme drought," Hamdan Nurdin, climate forecaster on duty of the Kupang climatology station of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), remarked here on Monday.
Severe dry spell has begun to hit tens of regions located in 11 districts and cities in NTT.
The regions included Aimere and Mataloko in Ngada District; Stamet Mali area in Alor District; Kawangu, Rambangaru, Kamanggih and Ori Angu/Palanggay in East Sumba District; Tardamu and Daieko in Sabu Raijua District; Papela, Kupang, and around Naioni area in Rote Ndao District; Sulamu and Baumata in Kupang District; Panite, Kualin, Oinlasi, Nulle, Batu Putih, and Oelbubuk in South Timur Tengah District; Sap’an and Lurasik in North Timur Tengah District; Biudukfoho, Besikama, Kaputu, and Sulit Kerena in Malaka District; and Atambua and Umarese in Belu District that shares a border with Timor Leste.
East Sumba District has gone without rain for 249 days, he stated.
Most of the other regions already receiving rain have low precipitation, except for the districts of Manggarai and East Manggarai, with moderate precipitation of 51-150 mm/10 days, and West Manggarai District, with high precipitation of 151-200 mm/10 days.
Kuwus Sub-district in West Manggarai has the highest precipitation, reaching 156 mm/10 days.
During this year’s dry season, an El Nino-induced severe dry spell cast a pall over 100 districts and cities in Indonesia’s provinces of Aceh, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara.
The government had forecast that the current drought, drier than that of last year, would spread to 28 out of the country's 34 provinces and could affect 48,491,666 people and leave 11,774,437 ha of areas parched.
A total of 55 district and municipal administrations in the seven provinces had declared a state of emergency in their regions over drought.
The authorities had built artesian wells in several areas and supplied over seven million liters of clean water, out of the 15 million liters to be distributed.
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Translator: Bernadus Tokan, Fardah
Editor: Sri Haryati
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
